A.M. Ran the Bridal Veil 10 K, 2nd place in 34:25. Jeff and I were timing the race, so we ran it as well as part of our Saturday workout. We warmed up a bit over 4 miles. It was windy, the wind was blowing out of the Provo Canyon, which meant head wind for the first 3+ miles. We did a couple of strides to gage the wind. On the first one we ran 43 seconds for 200 uphill into a headwind. On the second one we ran 37 downhill with a tailwind. Got to the start, found some competition. Bryan Summers, a coach at West Jordan High, 4:35 miler, winner of the Salt Lake 5 K this year (16:31), one of the 4 runners who saved the male field from being chicked by Emily Jameson. He was wearing the Wasatch Running Center uniform, my former sponsor, to make things more interesting. To better deal with the wind Jeff and I decided to stick together in the first 3 miles trading leads at 1 minute intervals or more often if necessary. So I would push the top end of how fast I was willing to start, while he would push the bottom end of how slow. This meant that I was having a bad day, Jeff could end up 10 seconds slower that he should have from starting too slow, and if Jeff was having a good day I would end up 10 seconds slower from starting too fast. But that was OK, since this was a low profile race with no prize money. And in any case, the cooperation against the wind would wipe out the losses anyway, so it was all good.
We did everything according to the plan. Official mile markers were not exceptionally accurate, but not too bad either. I ran that race a year ago, and it came out 6.21 on my GPS as well as on Ted's. I did not wear a GPS this time, and was going off the official mile markers as well as the triangles on the trail to double check on occasion. First mile was officially 5:41, second 5:59. Brian was still with us. He sat behind the first 1.8 miles, and then moved up. That was good, I did not have to take my turn, nor did Jeff. At around 2.2 Bryan was done leading, and Jeff moved up, but the wind was so strong he asked me to help. So I moved up, did what I could, then Jeff took over again. As Jeff turned up the heat, I started moaning, and we dropped Bryan. The wind died down a bit, so Jeff was OK putting more fuel into the fire while running up front. Our third mile was 6:13, but it was probably long. We did hit bad gusts, but they were not any worse than in the second mile, and the climb was about the same level of steepness. Shortly after 3 we hit the turnaround. I moved up for a little bit, but then Jeff took over again and now was going full steam. Things started getting miserable for me, but I wanted to be with Jeff for as long as possible, because I knew that once I was left alone I would not have the drive to push. We hit the next "mile" in 4:51, which was definitely short, probably by the same amount as the third mile was long. Shortly after 4 I lost concentration and Jeff was gone. From then on I ran in survival mode, but it was still decent. Next mile was 5:18, which was probably right (and it agreed with the triangles), followed by 5:23 that was long, and 1:00 to the finish, which was definitely short as I was not kicking that hard. I ended up beating my last year time by 1:10, which I was pleased with. Some of it came from working with Jeff, but I think some of it came from being in better shape. Jeff won with 33:46, Bryan was third with 36:28. We timed the race, and then went to run the rest of the miles. Ran another 7.6, found Bryan shortly after we started, and he joined us. We did a fair share of FRB propaganda on him, hopefully it will bear fruit. Total of 18 miles for the run. P.M. 1 with Julia in regular walking shoes in 9:32, then 2 with Benjamin in Five Fingers in 17:18 with Jenny doing the first 1.5 with us in 13:15. T4 Racer - 108.76 miles Five Fingers - 209.63 miles
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